ACG
CASE REPORTS JOURNAL
acgcasereports.gi.org
AIMS AND SCOPE
ACG Case Reports Journal, published by the American College
of Gastroenterology and edited exclusively by GI fellows, provides
a peer-reviewed publishing outlet for GI fellows, private practice
clinicians, and other healthcare providers to share interesting
case reports. This bi-weekly, open-access publication makes all
content freely available online to all readers. ACG Case Reports
Journal publishes case reports, images, and letters to the editor
in all topics of gastroenterology and hepatology, including:
• Biliary
• Colon
• Endoscopy
• Esophagus
• Functional Bowel Disorders
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Liver
• Nutrition and Obesity
• Pancreas
• Pathology
• Pediatric
• Small Bowel
• Stomach
The ACG Case Reports Journal was created to help fulfill ACG’s
commitment to providing growth and learning opportunities for
GI fellows, and helps fellows meet core curriculum requirements
for non-patient care activities. To this end, all case submissions
must have a GI fellow in training or a resident interested in
pursuing GI fellowship as the lead author. Cases authored by
private practice clinicians and other healthcare providers who
might traditionally face difficulty publishing with leading journals
are also welcome.
EISSN: 2326-3253
URL: acgcasereports.gi.org
PUBLICATION
ACG Case Reports Journal is published online bi-weekly. As an
open-access publication, full-text articles are freely accessible
for all readers in both HTML and PDF format immediately upon
online publication. There is no print version of the Journal, but
issue articles will be collated into an easily downloadable PDF
for offline viewing. ACG Case Reports Journal does not charge
submission or publication fees for authors.
DUPLICATE PUBLICATION
Manuscripts must not be submitted to or previously published
in any other journal. Cases presented as a poster or oral pre-
sentation at any scientific meeting should contain a disclosure
statement of this fact on the title page. Cases published as an
abstract related to a scientific meeting should be considerably
expanded and enriched from the abstract version, and should
contain a full citation of this former publication.
GUIDE TO AUTHORS
OPEN ACCESS AND CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING
ACG Case Reports Journal content is licensed according to the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
International license, under which users are free to share (copy, dis-
tribute and transmit) the contribution under the following conditions:
• Attribution. Users must attribute the contribution in the
manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any
way that suggests that they or their use of the contribution
is endorsed by the author or licensor).
• Non-commercial. Users may not use this contribution for
commercial purposes.
• No derivative works. If users alter, transform, or build upon
this work, they may not distribute the modified material.
For any reuse or distribution, users must make clear to others
the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with
a link to the web URL of the published work. Any of the above
conditions can be waived if users obtain permission from the
license holder. The full legal terms of this license can be found
on the Creative Commons website.
LICENSE TO PUBLISH/COPYRIGHT ASSIGNMENT
A signed license to publish/copyright form will be requested from
the authors by the editorial office upon manuscript acceptance.
There is no need include a copyright form with your manuscript
submission; the form is not available on the website.
PREPARING FOR SUBMISSION
For tips on a successful case report, please see this Editor’s Note.
Submissions are not accepted via email. Manuscripts must be
submitted online at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/acgcr.
GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION TYPES
Please follow the specific guidelines for the manuscript type you
wish to submit.
CASE REPORTS must include:
• An unstructured abstract of 100 words or fewer
• Fewer than 1000 words, excluding abstract and references
• Introduction, Case Report, and Discussion sections
• No more than 20 references, formatted per AMA style
• A complete title page as described below
• Confirmation that informed patient consent was obtained.
• No more than 6 image panels submitted as TIF files of
adequate resolution and size. See below for more details.
IMAGES must include:
• No abstract or section headings
• Fewer than 400 words, excluding references
• No more than 5 references, formatted per AMA style
• A complete title page as described below
• Confirmation that informed patient consent was obtained.
• No more than 4 image panels submitted as TIF files of
adequate resolution and size. See below for more details.
GUIDE TO AUTHORS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include:
• No abstract or section headings
• Fewer than 250 words, excluding references
• No more than 5 references, formatted per AMA style
• A complete title page as described below
TITLE PAGE: Manuscripts will not be accepted without a full
title page, which should be separate from the full manuscript to
protect reviewer blinding and must include:
• All author names, degrees, and affiliations
• Full contact information for the corresponding author
• Description of author roles in manuscript creation
• One author listed as the article guarantor
• Description of financial support or competing interests
• Confirmation that informed patient consent was obtained
for publication of the case details.
INFORMED CONSENT: All manuscripts require a statement
confirming that informed patient consent was obtained for case
publication. This applies regardless of your institutional or IRB
requirements, and you should make a good-faith effort to obtain
informed consent as a courtesy to the patient. If the patient is
deceased, please contact the next of kin listed in the patient
records. Please contact the editorial office for advice if consent
cannot be obtained. All identifying patient information must be
removed from the text and images to protect patient privacy.
FILE FORMATS: Manuscript files should be submitted as word
processor files (Microsoft Word or similar). Figure files should
be PPT or EPS. Image files should be TIF. Please do not submit
PDF files. Video files should be MP4 or MOV format, and be no
more than 500 MB in size.
IMAGES: All images should be numbered sequentially and
cited in the text. Images should be submitted as separate TIF
files of reasonable size (at least 3.5” wide) and high resolution
(at least 300 dpi). Do not submit PDF files and do not paste im-
ages into your Word document. Individual panels of multi-panel
images should submitted as separate files. No labels (A, B,
etc) should be pasted on top of the image; arrows or markers
should be black or white and tasteful in design. A brief caption
for each image must be provided in your manuscript file. Color
is published free of charge and is encouraged for all relevant
figures, images, and videos.
FIGURES AND TABLES: Please submit figures and tables
judiciously, as they are rarely necessary for well-written case
reports. It is better to include only necessary lab values in your
case text, rather than providing all lab values in a table or chart.
Number figures and tables sequentially and cite them in the
text. Figures should be submitted in an editable format (EPS,
Excel, or similar) as separate files. Do not submit PDF files and
do not paste figures into your Word document. Layers within
figure files should not be “flattened.” Include a brief caption for
each table and figure containing relevant footnotes, abbrevia-
tions, and credits. Tables should be submitted in an editable
format (Word, Excel, or similar), and should be self-explanatory
and be comprehensible without the manuscript text.
acgcasereports.gi.org
COVER LETTER: All submissions should include a brief cover
letter addressed to the Editors stating whether the submission
has been previously published or presented at a scientific meet-
ing, in whole or in part, or if it is under consideration elsewhere.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Any contributor not listed in the au-
thors section may be acknowledged in the manuscript, including
those who provided technical, editorial, or writing assistance, and
those who provided financial or material support.
WORD LIMITS: As a general rule, case reports should contain
1000 or fewer words, excluding abstract and references. Im-
ages should contain 400 or fewer words, excluding references.
Case reports should contain an abstract of 100 words or fewer.
LANGUAGE AND STYLE: Manuscripts are accepted in English,
and should follow the style of the American Medical Association
(AMA) Manual of Style, 10th Edition. Stedman’s Medical Diction-
ary, 28th Edition, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,
11th Edition should be used as standard references. If accepted,
manuscripts will be edited according to these reference guides,
and proofs will be sent to the author for approval prior to online
publication. Non-English speakers should have their manuscript
proofed by a native English speaker prior to submission.
DRUG AND DEVICE NAMES: Refer to drugs and therapeutic
agents by their accepted generic or chemical name. Provide
the names and locations (city and state in United States; city
and country outside the United States) of manufacturers of
drugs, devices, or equipment cited in the manuscript.
ABBREVIATIONS: Abbreviations should be defined at the first
mention in the text and in each table and figure. Write out the
full term for each abbreviation at its first use unless it is a stan-
dard unit of measure.
UNITS: Standard metric units of measure should be used and
can be abbreviated.
REFERENCES: The reference list should only include works
that are cited in the text, should be listed consecutively as they
appear in the text, and should follow the AMA Manual of Style,
10th Edition. Unpublished sources should be cited parentheti-
cally in the text. Examples of frequently used reference formats
are shown below:
Journal Article
Smith PM, Wright P. Acid reflux and PPI use in older patients.
Am J Gastroenterol. 2012;5(10):57–66.
Online Journal Article
Smith PM, Wright P. Acid reflux and PPI use in older patients.
Am J Gastroenterol. 2012;5(10):57–66.
http://www.nature.com/ajg/fullURL. Published October 2, 2012.
Accessed May 1, 2013.
Non-English Journal Article
Cite as above, providing the foreign language title as originally
published, or if translated, providing the English translation of
the title followed by bracketed acknowledgement of original
language (i.e., [in Spanish]).
GUIDE TO AUTHORS
Book
Smith PM, Stevens JD. Obesity and Gastroenterology. 2nd ed.
New York, NY: Springer Publishing Co; 2009.
Article or Chapter in an Edited Book
Sharma P. Gastric bypass: Risks and benefits. In: Smith PM,
Wright W, Stevens JD, eds. Obesity and Gastroenterology. 2nd
ed. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Co; 2009:115–135.
Article in Published Proceedings
Smith PM, Wright P. Acid reflux and PPI use in older patients.
In: Proceedings from the ACG 2012 Annual Scientific Meeting
and Postgraduate Course; October 10–16, 2012; Las Vegas,
NV. Abstract 650.
ETHICS AND JOURNAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Authors must disclose all conflicts of interest, financial and
otherwise, upon manuscript submission. Invited peer reviewers
should also declare any potential conflicts of interest and decline
the review, if deemed necessary by the Editors. Each year, the
Editors publicly disclose their conflicts of interest on the ACG
Case Reports Journal website.
The ACG Case Reports Journal follows ethical guidelines for jour-
nal publishing outlined by the ICMJE Recommendations for the
Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work
in Medical Journals, and by the COPE Code of Conduct and
Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Suspected cases of
research misconduct, including plagiarism and other violations,
will be handled following COPE guidelines.
When reporting on human or animal subjects, authors must
state whether the work was approved by a local IRB or eth-
ics committee, or in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration
of 1975, as revised in 2008. Efforts should always be made to
guarantee protection of patient privacy in submitted cases.
PEER REVIEW
All case reports will be peer reviewed by external peer review-
ers. Authors are welcome to suggest 2–3 peer reviewers with
whom there is no conflict of interest. The Editors may or may
not use these suggested reviewers. ACG Case Reports Journal
uses a double-blind review process: neither the reviewers nor the
authors know the others’ identities. Peer reviewers are asked to
rate papers based on scientific relevance, novelty, practical use
to clinicians, and overall quality. Peer review comments will be
provided to authors of all reviewed manuscripts.
acgcasereports.gi.org
PERMISSIONS
This is an open access journal, which means that all content is
freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution.
Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print,
search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal with-
out asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
MANUSCRIPT ARCHIVE DEPOSITION
Automatic deposition into PubMed Central will take place shortly
after publication for all articles. If your funding bodies and/or in-
stitution requires authors to self-archive articles in an institutional
archive, then authors are responsible for depositing the accepted
version of their manuscript.
PUBMED INDEXING
The ACG Case Reports Journal is currently indexed on PubMed,
PubMed Central, EBSCO, Google Scholar, and the Directory of
Open Access Journals (DOAJ). An application for indexing in ISI
Web of Science (and the resulting Impact Factor) has been sub-
mitted. We will announce the results as soon as possible.
PUBLISHER INFORMATION
Founded in 1932, the American College of Gastroenterology
(ACG) is an organization with an international membership of
more than 12,000 individuals from 86 countries. The College
is committed to serving the clinically oriented digestive disease
specialist through its emphasis on scholarly practice, teaching
and research. The mission of the College is to serve the evolving
needs of physicians in the delivery of high quality, scientifically
sound, humanistic, ethical, and cost-effective health care to
gastroenterology patients.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Lindsey Topp
Editorial Advisor
Jenny Dunnington
Editorial Assistant
American College of Gastroenterology
6400 Goldsboro Road Suite 200
Bethesda, MD 20817
Phone: 301-263-9000
Fax: 301-263-9025
Email: acgcasereports@gi.org